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PASADENA, CALIF.—Unlike some child stars of her generation, Andrea Barber did not rob a video store or crash or burn on cocaine when the sitcom she starred in came to a halt. Rather, she lived an extraordinarily normal life.

Barber was 18 when Full House ended in 1995. She had played quirky neighbour Kimmy Gibbler, the best friend of eldest daughter D.J. Tanner (Candace Cameron Bure) for eight seasons.

“When the show was cancelled I very sad of course because I was missing my castmates,” Barber told the Star. “But as far as the business — I was ready to move on. I had just started college and literally moved from the Full House set to the dorm. I decided to focus on my education instead, so it was a natural transition for me.”

Barber ended up earning a Master’s in women’s studies, raising her children in relative obscurity until producers called.

The return of Full House, now known as Fuller House, is one of the more visible of television’s reboots, boosted by a recent Lifetime Movie about the show. It joins a roster which includes The X-Files and Twin Peaks.

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The cornucopia of retreaded shows could be tapping into a sense of nostalgia as much as it demonstrates how Hollywood is unafraid to return to tired, but bankable material. This has been stirred by the unprecedented proliferation of deep-pocketed online broadcasters who are looking for material in the age of unlimited bandwidth.

In the original a widowed father gets help looking after his three daughters with the help of his best friend and brother-in-law. In the new show the two daughters and friend, played by Barber, Bure and Jodie Sweetin, end up looking after three boys.

However, while John Stamos, Bob Saget and Dave Coulier will also be back, most notably absent is the youngest in the Tanner household. That’s daughter Michelle who was played by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Since the show wrapped, the two have gone on to critical and commercial success as business partners in the fashion world.

“We all tried to persuade them to come and play. They decided not to at this time,” said Full House creator Jeff Franklin. “We’re hopeful at some point in the future that they may change their minds and come back and reprise Michelle. We only need one of them.

“So we’re still hopeful that that will happen. But everybody else is back. And, you know, I’m sure we’ve all had family reunions and not everyone shows up. But we still love them, and the door is always open, and I hope it happens.”

Meanwhile, cast members say they are enjoying the reunion tour.

“It was overwhelming to walk onto the set for the first time. My first time walking onto the stage, the set wasn’t dressed yet, and it wasn’t painted. So it was sort of like walking into an archeological site that had just been unearthed after 20 years, and it was all very dusty, said Barber. “It was overwhelming. It was like coming home again to your childhood home.”

Bure said at the Television Critics Association conference that she started to cry when she walked on the sound stage for the first time.

“Yeah. It was extremely overwhelming . . . emotions really got to me, and I was just crying because I was flooded with so many memories.”

Sweetin said her own children were on set for the taping. A picture taken with her daughters on the couch was her most memorable experience.

“That was a moment that I never in a million years though that I would be able to have. And I cried after I took that picture. I thought, “Wow I walked away from this when I was 13 years old, and I thought, ‘That’s it. Good bye.'” And hello again. What a beautiful moment.”

Correction - January 19, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the two daughters and a friend take care of three girls.

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